Welcome to my home page. This is still very much under construction at
the moment, and has been for the previous 12 years (yes, really!).
But it will always be, since any reasonable Web site should be either
being constantly maintained and kept up-to-date, or moribund.

But don't let that stop you having a look around. You may find
something of interest, although you won't find lots of useless
information, flashy graphics, hot links to kew1 sitez, or counters
showing how many have surfed this way before you (except, of course,
that they don't - or not accurately anyway). You also won't find
any blue ribbons or any whining about the iniquities of the CDA. If
you think that these things are really important, then you should try
to get out more.

You'll note that none of my pages say "This must be read with Internet
Exploder 5.041.217.32", "Best displayed in Netscrape" or "You need to
install 54 different incompatible plugins to view this page".
The 'Net should be usable by anyone no matter what computer or
software they are using - let's try to keep it that way. Having
said that, you should ideally have a table-capable browser (come on,
even Lynx can do that!).

Linux and Related Computer Stuff

The free operating system that everybody has heard of. Not just for hackers,
but a real alternative to Microsoft for everyone to use. Try it and see.

DrawView
allows Draw, Vector or Poster files to be viewed on Linux or any other
system that supports
Qt 4.

If you think that Linux (or Unix in general) is unfriendly, or has no
useful software, then you may be pleasantly surprised. There are two
excellent graphical desktop environments available now: I prefer the
K Desktop Environment
but
Gnome also shows
much promise. There is also free software for pretty much any purpose
that could be imagined, including the ultimate
editor,
graphics package and
office suite
(take your pick for that,
free
or
commercial).

Acorn/RiscOS Computer Stuff

Most of the computer world, especially abroad, has never heard of
Acorn. But they had quietly been designing and producing innovative,
powerful and popular desktop machines for home, education and business
for nearly twenty years (although sadly no longer).

For more information, try some of the links and pages below.

DrawView
allows Draw, Vector or Poster files to be viewed on Linux or any other
system that supports
Qt 4.
View all drawings and all types of object in a scrollable and zoomable
window, or convert to PostScript or PDF for use in other applications.

For more Acorn or RiscOS information, try
RISC OS Ltd,
now owners and developers of the operating system,
or
riscos.info,
a user and technical Wiki.
Other useful news sites are
Archive Magazine
(take out a magazine subscription, it's well worth it) and
Drobe.

The old
Acorn Computers company web site
is now totally dead - the new
acorncomputers.co.uk
has taken over the name and brand, but is a totally different organisation
selling PCs and laptops. No link, because I'm not going to advertise for them.
Unfortunately also now dead is the once-very-useful
Acorn Cybervillage.

Shameless Advertising

Need IT training, computer support (PC, Linux or Acorn) or web design, in the
South West London area?
Try Computers Won't Byte.

Databases, accounts or marketing communications in the same region?
The Systems Studio
can help you.

Want a music download service that is DRM-free and cheap, with an
extensive up-to-date collection and is safe and reliable to use? Read
these articles from
The Register
or the
Sydney Morning Herald,
and try the services described there.

Miscellaneous Bits

There are some people out there who will try anything.
Read these mails and despair.

Also despair that because of the above link and destination page,
I regularly get hits on this site from search engines, using search terms
like "how to program a virus" or similar. Forget it, there is no
such information here.

Don't forget that - for Micro$oft Windows users at least - the
Internet is a dangerous place, mostly due to the activities of the
sort of people who search for such information, and those who have
moved on from needing to look it up. In particular, using Internet
Explorer 6 (yes, there are plenty of you who still do) is
computer suicide, even if you only visit respectable sites and even with
anti-virus protection. Consider, at least, using a safer browser such
as
Mozilla Firefox.